SF accuse Harney of running two-tier health service

Minister for Health Mary Harney was today accused of presiding over a two-tier hospital system.

The accusation was levelled by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and the party's leader in the Dáil, Caoimhghin O Caolain during a hospitals rally attended by around 2,000 people in Dublin.

They also alleged the former Tánaiste was intent on pursuing a policy of privatisation in the country's hospitals.

Mr O Caolain told the rally at the GPO on O'Connell Street: "We have a two-tier public-private health system where wealth can buy the best care and skip the queue while those who depend on the public system must wait in line.

"How could it be any different when we have a Government whose Tánaiste Michael McDowell has said that inequality is a good thing for the Irish economy?

"His colleague, the former Tánaiste Mary Harney, has now been Minister for Health and Children for just over two years. In that time she has presided over the worst winter crisis in accident and emergency units in the history of our health system.

"Last winter the daily number on trolleys and chairs in A&E units exceeded 500. These are men, women and children forced to wait many hours and often days on end in overcrowded conditions - unsafe, unsanitary and totally unacceptable."